Global Climate Change: Kempe, Former Skeptic, Convinced by Military Report

Bloomberg columnist Frederick Kempe, a self-described former global-warming skeptic, published an opinion piece yesterday about "a seismic shift" in America the growing consensus that climate change is a mainstream issue:

You know climate change has become a top priority in Washington when it starts penetrating the thinking of leaders in the U.S. military and intelligence community.

Eleven retired generals and admirals have sent out a warning shot about national-security threats from climate change, calling it a ``threat-multiplier'' that will make unstable regions shakier through increased drought, extreme weather, migrations and rising extremism.

No less than President George W. Bush has issued a clarion call, citing the ``serious challenge of global climate change'' in his last State of the Union address. His administration's intelligence community had begun work looking at how global warming could pressurize unstable regions even before the Senate introduced legislation calling for a National Intelligence Estimate on it.

``Moving climate change into the national security realm is a watershed event,'' says Sherri Goodman, a former Pentagon official who directed the Military Advisory Board at the CNA Corp., a national-security research organization in Alexandria, Virginia.

That's all further evidence of a seismic shift in America on climate change as a mainstream issue, which may soon have the world's biggest energy user leapfrogging Europe and elsewhere on the science of reducing emissions and on studies of the political consequences if those efforts fall short.

Read the full article: Kempe on Climate Change

A Poem for Earth Day

What a glorious day, weather was absolutely gorgeous. I got to work in the garden with my kids and help a Temple University complete her project in broadcast journalism (more on that later). Then a wonderful walk in our neighborhood and more family time, before dinner with my wife in an intimate restaurant. (Not to mention the 4-in-a-row homers by my Red Sox against Yanks.) And tomorrow, I'm off to Boulder, Colorado.

Consequently, I won't have an opportunity to do my usual 10 thoughts for Earth Day. Instead, I'll leave you with a poem of mine, "Healing," which recently appeared in The Elegant Thorn Review:


Healing

"Healing, not saving." ~ Gary Snyder


"Healing, not saving," for healing
indicates corrective, reclaiming

restoring the earth to its bounty,
to right placement and meaning--

Forward thinking, making things new
or better or, at least, bringing back

from the edge. The way
bulbs are nestled in earth,

starting to heal again--
the way a wound heals.

Keep warm. Sun following
rain; rain following drought.

Perhaps we have come far enough
along in this world to start

healing, protecting from harm,
from our disjunctive lives.

The way the skin repairs with a scab,
injury mediated by mindfulness.

The bark of the "tree of blood"
heals wounds we cannot see.

Deliver us from the time of trial
and save us from ourselves.

--Scott Edward Anderson


Another of my poems was posted today on poet Deborah Fries' new Good at Last blog: "Dead Red Wing."

Alternative Energy: FutureGen Partnership between Japan, US

from Yomiuri Shimbun
Date: April 22, 2007

The Japanese and U.S. governments will likely agree at a bilateral summit meeting scheduled for Friday on Japan's participation in a U.S. project to develop a coal-fueled, near-zero emission power plant, it was learned Saturday.

Japan will cooperate with the United States in terms of funds and technologies for the FutureGen project, which the U.S. government has been promoting since 2003. South Korea and India have also participated in the project.

The project will spend more than 1 billion dollars on developing technologies to store carbon dioxide from the plant in the ground, making it the world's first thermal power plant not to emit pollutants and CO2 into the air.

CO2 from the plant will be liquefied by applying massive pressure, before being injected into the earth at a depth of more than 1,000 meters. The new technologies currently being studied are also aimed at preventing the liquefied carbon dioxide from leaking from the rock stratum.

In Japan, the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth has been conducting verification tests on a CO2 geological sequestration system at a natural gas field in Nagaoka, Niigata Prefecture. It is hoped the results of the research will be applicable to the U.S. project, government sources said.

Although the United States is a major emitter of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, it did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol that set country-specific targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions for the period from 2008 to 2012, aimed at preventing global warming.

Through its cooperation with the FutureGen project, Tokyo will try to persuade the U.S. government to join global efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, while at the same time promoting U.S. participation in post-Kyoto Protocol negotiations.

Technologies to store CO2 in the ground and sea have recently been attracting attention, being viewed as one of the most promising measures among others aimed at cutting CO2 emissions.

Every Day is Earth Day...

Climate Change: BBC Asks, "Is Spring the New Summer?"

The BBC reports that two "events in nature that usually herald the beginning of summer have started already, say researchers looking into reports from the public.

"The blossoming of hawthorn and return of migrating swifts - usually in May - have prompted the Woodland Trust to declare 'spring is the new summer'.

"The trust has been analysing reports from members of the public taking part in the BBC Springwatch survey."

It said it showed how climate change was affecting wildlife and seasons.

The return of the swift from warmer countries, usually expected in mid May, could mean summer has come early, said environment correspondent Sarah Mukherjee.

Sightings of swifts have been reported across south-east England and Gloucestershire over the last few days.

Swifts usually return from migration around 10 May when temperatures are slightly milder.

'Exceptionally mild'

The flowering of hawthorn, normally around the middle of next month, is considered to signify the start of summer.

This year, the earliest flowering hawthorn was recorded on 9 April.

Dr Kate Lewthwaite of the Woodland Trust said: "Thanks to the exceptionally mild start to the year we are experiencing, this summer signal is arriving three weeks earlier than the 11 May average."

Dr Lewthwaite added the timing of the seasons was changing, with the mild winter and warm spring contributing to warmer than average temperatures.

"It is an example of how climate change is affecting our wildlife and seasons."

Springwatch - a survey into the arrival of spring - asks members of the public to record the first sightings of the year of six species - frog spawn, seven-spot ladybird, red-tailed bumblebee, peacock butterfly, flowering hawthorn and swifts.

Experts at the Woodland Trust said the sightings of hawthorn flowering were accurate and had been verified.

Global Climate Change: Global Warming, Security Risks, and "Children of Men"

What a vacation I had. We didn't go to Florida, which is our usual spring break activity, and regretted it almost immediately as temperatures dropped and the weather was more like early March than late April. My vacation started in Washington, DC, on the eve of the release of the IPCC report, and ended with a nor'easter hitting Philadelphia and surrounding areas with record rainfall, as a report was released about the potential security risks of global warming.

Somewhere in between, we rented "Children of Men," Alfonso Cuarón's stunning film about a chaotic world in which human beings are sterile and a former activist (brilliantly played by Clive Owen) helps transport a suddenly and miraculously pregnant woman -- the first in 18 years -- to meet a ship called "Tomorrow" at sea. Once there, it is implied, her child's birth may help scientists from "The Human Project," save the future of the species.

Watching the film and especially after, I couldn't help reflecting on the images of global collapse, chaos and ruin. It's a remarkable piece, not to mention a tour-de-force for Owen. The art direction stays with you and is neither as stylized as "Mad Max" nor as computer-generated as "The Day After Tomorrow." It's a world we see on CNN, beamed from Iraq; only it is London 2027, and that western familiarity makes it all the more frightening. It could be your home or mine.

In the film, marginal societies have totally collapsed and their dwindling populations emigrate to (or invade) England and other wealthy nations. The illegals --- "fugees," as they are called in the film -- are rounded up, imprisoned in cages, and transported to a refugee camp. (There's not a few images reminiscent of Abu Ghraib in there too, as a reminder of how non-extreme the film's world is.)

The report published Monday "explores ways projected climate change is a 'threat multiplier' in already fragile regions, exacerbating conditions that lead to failed states — the breeding grounds for extremism and terrorism."

The report, commissioned by the Center for Naval Analyses, a government-financed research group, and written by a group called the Military Advisory Board, recommends climate change be considered in the country's security plans. According to the report, the U.S. "should commit to a stronger national and international role to help stabilize climate changes at levels that will avoid significant disruption to global security and stability."

Comparisons to Somalia in the early 1990s were drawn by Peter Schwartz, a scenario-planning consultant, in an article about the report in Sunday's New York Times, “'You had disruption driven by drought, leading to the collapse of a society, humanitarian relief efforts, and then disastrous U.S. military intervention. That event is prototypical of the future.'

“'Picture that in Central America or the Caribbean, which are just as likely,' he said. 'This is not distant, this is now. And we need to be preparing.'”

Watch "Children of Men," if you want to see what one potential scenario of global warming looks like. And then pledge to yourself, your kids, and your community that you won't allow it to happen.